Sarah has listed “Things I know to be true”. It’s a good list, to which I would add:
– When in doubt, read.
I had an interesting discussion with this guy at a party Saturday evening about A Clockwork Orange. I haven’t seen the film (I don’t think I want to, the book’s bad enough), but I think the plot’s basically the same, no? Anyway, the discussion centered on the perception of right and wrong in the book. I’ve got a problem with it (and I have a feeling Burgess actually intended for us to have a problem with it), in that much as I condemn the protagonist’s (can’t remember any names, sorry, it’s been close on ten years since I read it) actions – naturally I’m not particularly in favour of raping and killing people – I actually think what is done to him is much, much worse. The tying together of aversion for violence and classical music that they condition him to, the way he cannot afterwards hear a bar of Beethoven without feeling ill, is somehow worse to me than all the murders put together. Which only makes sense to me one way: Art is the attempted expression of truth. Association of art with something base or vulgar or “evil” or simply irrelevant (viz. irrelevant to the truth it is trying to express) is a betrayal of truth. The betrayal of truth is worse than murder. I suppose you could see a connection to my abhorrence of book-burning (see no. 10). Well, either I was expressing myself badly (very possible after a bottle of red wine) or my opponent did not agree. In his point of view (as far as I could make out) the music had spurred the protagonist on somehow and hence the only way of stopping the violence was the way chosen. Needless to say I disagreed. I think I might even have said that in that case they should have given up trying to stop him (i.e. let him keep murdering people). The other option, of course, which I don’t think I remembered to advocate, was simply locking him away for life.